Tsuyoshi Nonaka - Now designing for Bandai America

You may not know the name "Tsuyoshi Nonaka" but you know his work. He did the mechanical design for Mazinkaiser SKL, Shin Mazinger Shōgeki! Z-Hen and DICE among other things. Oh, he's also done work on some small series as Transformers, Super Sentai and Power Rangers. A lot of his work was credited to PLEX, the design studio he was a part of.

I've been seeing his hame around as guest of honor at various California conventions and wondered what the deal was. Turns out he's moved from Japan to the US to be head of “PLEX International Design, US division” for Bandai America. This means, as of 2011 - Tsuyoshi Nonaka has been designing toys for lines such as Power Rangers, Ben 10 and more.

Now I know why those Ben 10 toys look so great.

So now, when you bitch about the US versions of sentai toys being not as good, remember that it's very likely that the toys are being designed by the same person who designed them in Japan.